It is well known that 'Dog Bites Man' is not news, but 'Man Bites Dog' definitely is. Well then, try this for size: 'Blunkett Listens to Critics, Changes Policy'. 'Eh?' you say, "David Blunkett, Home Secretary - the Man Who Always Knows What's Good For You - changing his mind!'

Yep. I cannot quite believe it myself, but it's what seems to have happened. Last June, the Guardian revealed that the Home Office was planning a breathtaking extension of the rights of officialdom to access communications data. The Regulation of Investigatory Powers Act of 2000 (RIPA) had given these rights only to the police, the intelligence services, Customs & Excise and the Inland Revenue. But as the security panic triggered by 9/11 took hold, the control freaks in the Home Office saw a golden opportunity to award data-fishing licences to virtually every public authority in the land. Plans were laid to amend RIPA accordingly.

Under these plans, the list of public bodies with the power to demand access to communications data was lengthened to include seven Whitehall departments, every local authority in the country, NHS authorities in Northern Ireland and Scotland, and 11 quangos ranging from the postal services commission to the food standards agency. No argument was ever adduced for why, say, the Food Standards Agency might need access to the names and addresses of telephone subscribers, lists of telephone calls made and received, the identity of the sources and destinations of emails - not to mention mobile phone location data which can pinpoint anyone's whereabouts to within a few hundred metres. Yet the Home Office was proposing to let even the food police in on these secrets.

There was, of course, some uproar - mainly from the usual suspects (including this column). There were hostile pieces in the Guardian and the Daily Telegraph. Organisations like the Foundation for Information Policy Research and Liberty warned about the colossal - and essentially unregulated - invasions of privacy that would be facilitated under the new arrangements. Telecoms companies and Internet Services Providers trembled at the prospect of queues of inquisitive jobsworths whose demands they would now have to service. But to be honest, few of us expected to make much headway against a Home Secretary riding so high on the crest of an anti-terrorism wave.

And yet, it looks as though the criticism has had some effect. According to a draft policy paper leaked to the Guardian last week, Mr Blunkett has backed off. The revised policy document proposes to give only five new bodies - each with a serious crime- or terrorism-fighting role - the automatic power to demand access to the full range of communications data. They are: the Scottish drug enforcement agency, the serious fraud office, the UK atomic energy constabulary, fire authorities (for investigating suspicious fires and hoax 999 calls) and NHS trusts (also for handling emergency calls and investigating hoaxes). There is a further list of authorities which will be allowed access to subscriber data (names and addresses) but not to traffic information.

If the leaked document is accurate, there has been a significant change of heart within the Home Office. The journalistic temptation is to pillory Mr Blunkett for a U-turn or to ridicule him for having to abandon an unworkable Orwellian scheme. For once, however, the temptation should be resisted. It is genuinely difficult, in these dangerous times, to strike a balance between the liberties of a free society and the needs of the state. Last June, Mr Blunkett drew the line in the wrong place. He was criticised - and he listened. Now he proposes to draw the line in a more intelligent place. His new proposals are still flawed, but they are better than before. This is the way democracies are supposed to work. So let us have two cheers for the Home Secretary. And a darkened room for your columnist, who never thought he would utter these words.